Sunday, June 29, 2008

Not my day to shine

But had plenty of shinning on me, sun that is. Yesterday was all about the sun… the heat… and the humidity. It was a bad sign that we were feeling the heat at 7am just setting up for the day.

Day started like any other endurance race.. setting up the pits, laying the bike in a field, doing the little run back to the bike, start riding/walking and waiting for traffic to settle in on the first lap. But the day didn’t have as much energy as most, not because of the organizer’s, they did a great job on the entire day, but more so the spectators. Usually endurance events have a lot of people hanging around, yelling and cheering.. and extra energy. That just wasn’t there.. at least this year. Traffic thinned out enough after the first couple miles and it became so quite I was really thinking I could hear a squirrel fart. That quiet continued for most the riding. A few passes here or there with some conversations and joking but mostly just quiet. (And I-Pods were not allowed)

The heat was killer from the start and I had decided to use bottles verses the camelback, seemed pretty logical for a 10 mile lap where they have 3 aid stations. But I ran out of liquid at mile 7 of my first lap and quickly decided the camelback would be necessary for the day. Lap one is when I found out this course had a lot more climbing than I expected and gave me my first clue that my day probably wouldn’t go as hoped.

Lap two the heat was taking an extreme toll… my usually cooling and hydrations methods weren’t working and the chill bumps were appearing all over. Then around mile nine I took a turn on a gravel road way to fast and hot… and yes, I was trying to re-pass someone that just passed me. SLAM… I went down hard on the gravel. My right leg took the gravel, lots of it, you know that road crash look, and my hip took the impact with a ‘pretty bruise’ today.

But lap three is where the stomach kicked in and I couldn’t hold down any more fluid. It was an extreme push just for me to finish that lap.. which I did.. but it that was my final lap. Nope.. not my day. Those 30 miles took me 7 hours.

The heat was taking it’s toll on everyone, it was just hot and humid. It also apparently took all my mental ability yesterday since today I found out that hubby didn’t know he was in first yesterday, or when he fell to second, or that he was still in second when he retired. I apparently never thought to communicate that to him and thought he knew… how would he know? Um.. he wouldn’t.

So yesterday was just that, yesterday… not a great day, but heck, there could be worse. Just not the day either of us wanted.